Threads

Threads are the core of Plain’s data model. Every customer conversation becomes one.

Threads are the core of Plain’s data model and equivalent to tickets or conversations in other support platforms. When you use Plain to help a customer you assign yourself to a thread and then mark the thread as Done once you’re done helping.

For TypeScript, the GraphQL SDK gives you a fully typed client for these operations.

Threads are automatically created when a new email is received but can also be created via the API (when a customer submits a contact form for example). If you’re migrating from another support provider, you can import historic threads with their original timestamps and conversation history.

Threads have a status and can be assigned to multiple users.

Threads belong to one customer but can contain multiple email threads and customers.

An example thread looks like this:

The below is only showing a subset fields a thread has. Since our API is a GraphQL API you decide which fields you need when you make API requests. Use our API explorer to discover the full schema of threads.

{
  "id": "th_01HAP6DFA5KMKH8JNEWM0CSKCH",

  // If you create a thread via the API you can set this id for joining
  //threads in Plain back to something in your system:
  "externalId": null,

  "title": "Account access",
  "previewText": "Hi there could you please help me access my account, when I try to log in i get the error...",

  "customer": {
    "id": "c_01GPBNF06KX5Q3W7JYJN86H091",
    "fullName": "Sam Test",
    "email": {
      "email": "[e-mail]"
    }
    // Many more fields here, this is the full customer.
  },

  // Lower priority means more urgent (0-3) where 0 is "Urgent" and 3 is "Low"
  "priority": 2,

  // One of "TODO", "SNOOZED" or "DONE"
  "status": "SNOOZED",
  "statusChangedAt": {
    "iso8601": "2023-10-04T09:03:47.275Z"
  },

  "labels": [
    {
      "id": "l_01HB8BVMQXTXF1W1J94GGN7XRD",
      "labelType": {
        "id": "lt_01HB8BTN5S8NAJGSNC3NJZ7FV4",
        "name": "Bug report"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "l_01HB8BWW4DSDZJVGJWC825X5YH",
      "labelType": {
        "id": "lt_01HB81HYXZ2B8QGYCH5YG1AGM8",
        "name": "Account setup"
      }
    }
  ]
}